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Civil society calls for an end to compulsory telecommunications data retention (28 June 2010)

More than 100 organisations from 23 European countries last week asked
EU Commissioners Malmström, Reding and Kroes in a joint letter to
"propose the repeal of the EU requirements regarding data retention in
favour of a system of expedited preservation and targeted collection of
traffic data". Among the signatories are civil liberties, data
protection and human rights associations as well as crisis line and
emergency call operators, professional associations of journalists,
jurists and doctors, trade unions, consumer organisations and industry
associations.

The EU data retention directive, adopted in 2006, currently compels
phone and Internet companies to indiscriminately collect data about all
of their customers' communications. According to last week's letter,
such generalised data retention puts confidential activity and contacts,
for example with journalists, crisis lines and business partners, at
risk of disclosure by way of data leaks and abuses. "Blanket data
retention has proven to be superfluous, harmful or even unconstitutional
in many states across Europe", criticises the letter.

"Civil society across Europe agrees that the EU-wide requirement
to retain the entire population's communications data, introduced in
2006, is outdated", comments Patrick Breyer of the Working Group on Data
Retention, a civil liberties NGO. "Where data retention has been
implemented, the crime clearance rate has not increased. For example in
North Rhine-Westphalia, the most populated state of Germany, 85% of all
reported Internet crime was cleared in 2007 before the introduction of
data retention legislation, but only 77% was cleared in 2008 and
in 2009 after the implementation of data retention. The EU regulations
must now be made more flexible to allow for alternative procedures that
work more intelligently than an untargeted stockpiling of data."

"According to a German survey, about 70% of citizens are opposed
to a recording of their contacts and location in the absence of any
suspicion", says Florian Altherr of the Working Group. "They want to be sure that
their private and business contacts to marital crisis lines, lawyers,
journalists and others cannot fall into the wrong hands or erroneously
make them a suspect in the eyes of law enforcement authorities. The
countless number of data scandals such as the systematic abuse of
communications data at Deutsche Telekom have taught us that only erased
data is safe data."

Full text of the letter

To

Cecilia Malmström, European Commissioner for Home Affairs

Viviane Reding, European Commission Vice-President with
responsibility for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship

Neelie Kroes, European Commission Vice-President with
responsibility for the Digital Agenda

Dear Madam,

The EU data retention directive 2006/24 requires
telecommunications
companies to store data about all of their customers' communications.
Although ostensibly to reduce barriers to the single market, the
Directive was proposed as a measure aimed at facilitating criminal
investigations. The Directive creates a process for recording details of
who communicated with whom via various electronic communications
systems. In the case of mobile phone calls and SMS messages, the
respective location of the users is also recorded. In combination with
other data, Internet usage is also to be made traceable.

We believe that such invasive surveillance of the entire
population is
unacceptable. With a data retention regime in place, sensitive
information about social contacts (including business contacts),
movements and the private lives (e.g. contacts with physicians, lawyers,
workers councils, psychologists, helplines, etc) of 500 million
Europeans is collected in the absence of any suspicion.
Telecommunications data retention undermines professional
confidentiality, creating the permanent risk of data losses and data
abuses and deters citizens from making confidential communications via
electronic communication networks. It undermines the protection of
journalistic sources and thus compromises the freedom of the press.
Overall it damages preconditions of our open and democratic society. In
the absence of a financial compensation scheme in most countries, the
enormous costs of a telecommunications data retention regime must be
borne by the thousands of affected telecommunications providers. This
leads to price increases as well as the discontinuation of services, and
indirectly burdens consumers.

Studies prove that the communications data available without data
retention are generally sufficient for effective criminal
investigations. Blanket data retention has proven to be superfluous,
harmful or even unconstitutional in many states across Europe, such as
Austria, Belgium, Germany, Greece, Romania and Sweden. These states
prosecute crime just as effectively using targeted instruments, such as
the data preservation regime agreed in the Council of Europe Convention
on Cybercrime. There is no proof that telecommunications data retention
provides for better protection against crime. On the other hand, we can
see that it costs billions of euros, puts the privacy of innocent people
at risk, disrupts confidential communications and paves the way for an
ever-increasing mass accumulation of information about the entire
population.

Legal experts expect the European Court of Justice to follow the
Constitutional Court of Romania as well as the European Court of Human
Rights's Marper judgement and declare the retention of
telecommunications data in the absence of any suspicion incompatible
with the EU Charter of Fundamental Rights.

As representatives of the citizens, the media, professionals and
industry we collectively reject the Directive on telecommunications data
retention. We urge you to propose the repeal of the EU requirements
regarding data retention in favour of a system of expedited preservation
and targeted collection of traffic data as agreed in the Council of
Europe's Convention on Cybercrime. In doing so, please be assured of our
support.

Yours faithfully,

Patrick Breyer for the Arbeitskreis Vorratsdatenspeicherung
(Working Group on Data Retention), Germany